He was the last one to the cockpit, having spent a little extra time making sure all his gear was secure. Ready! His blade pulsed to his mind. He patted the hilt affectionately over his shoulder. He’d gone from using a scabbard for it to just using the armor’s void magic to anchor the blade in place with gravity.
His boots sounded loudly as he marched up the old metal interior through the mess towards the cockpit. As he strode, he could feel the ship slowing down. They must be on their final approach. By the time he got to the cockpit, the others were already seated and strapped in, even Arjun, who’d abandoned his mechanical ministrations in favor of safety.
“So. Are we there yet?” he asked with a grin.
“Stow that shit. Sir.” Sirsir said.
“Actually, I guess I’m no longer a lieutenant, thanks to my newest infusion.”
Sirsir shrugged. “Don’t mean shit to me. You were the XO then, and ain’t nothin happened to change that.”
He shrugged, “Fair enough,” and sat down. He winced when he realized he had a really long sword magnetically clinging to his back. Yet when he glanced back, he saw the blade had phased itself so it simply passed clean through the seat.
“Huh. Neat.”
Space and room, no issue. Where you go, I go.
He fastened his safety harness down and gave Arjun a confident smile. The small technician tried to return the gesture, but Akamori could see the panic just behind his little eyes. If given the chance, he was certain Arjun might have bolted for safer ground. Not that any were to be found yet.
“So uh, seriously though, are we there yet? I can’t tell.” he said with a gesture at the black screen.
Morwen was seated in the command seat, watching several screens intently. Her focus never left the bright green screens. “So it would seem. Yet, nothing is here. We’ve arrived at the exact coordinates the prophecy provided, but I fear we may be in error.” Morwen leaned back with an exasperated sigh.
Akamori canted his head. He recalled scavenger hunts as a kid. His father was always asking him to find random, odd little things. Or deliver stuff. Lots of delivering stuff. He somehow always just found things. Absently, he clicked out of his harness, having only sat down a grand total of a few seconds, and drifted next to Morwen. He glanced down at the sensor screens and back up to the main. Then down again, and back up.
Before they could decide on what to do next, fate chose for them. The ship lurched hard as warning klaxons howled in protest. Morwen growled at the controls as she fought to correct the ship’s sudden change of position. Electricity poured into the ship, leaping from smoking consoles and burning out avionics. Burned plastic and ionized ozone filled the air, along with acrid smoke that stung the back of his throat and lungs to breathe.
“We’re under attack, but by what?” Morwen growled.
“Its gotta be that dragon.” Akamori said, clenching his arm rests tightly.
Arjun rapidly tapped several commands into a surviving console, and a large draconic outline appeared on top of the ship. The large air wyrm reared back massive front talons and brought them down in raking slashes across the ship’s body. Metal shrieked and groaned as the dragon gutted the doomed freighter.
Morwen struggled to throttle the ship ahead, struggling to pry the freighter free of the dragon’s talons. The deck plating rumbled as the ship powered forward. As it did so, they passed through a magical barrier. A wall of wards washed over them like water. Akamori’s skin tingled from the enormity of the magic. Those were divine level wards for sure.
Below the ship, the ground now appeared. The ship lost altitude and parts as the Dragon continued to tear and rend the aged freighter. Akamori’s stomach fell free of his body as the ship tumbled end over end. The dragon roared outside, causing the hull to vibrate from the sound.
Breathing became extremely troublesome as the ship’s lumbering spin-generated more g’s than normal. Metal creaked and groaned as the ship threatened to tear itself apart at the seams. They had to get the dragon off if they were going to land whatever survived this attack. Even though he knew going out, there would be the equivalence to suicide. Magic use in the void was asking for trouble from the voidspawn. And he doubted he had the swordsmanship skills to deal with a seasoned adult dragon.
You don’t. His sword hissed in reply to his thoughts. He tried to roll his eyes in reply, but the strain of the roll almost made him pass out, even as splitting pain lanced into his head. “Really could have used some of that light magic,” he grumbled. Don’t need it. Have void!
“Not sure how that’s going to help here.”
Ship spinning. Not you. Get free of ship, stop spinning.
He blinked. That actually made sense. He could technically fly. In fact, he probably ought to go do something about that dragon.
“Oh. Well, when you put it like that.” He replied. He turned to face the others, “I’m going to do something really stupid!” He shouted over the chaos and unclipped his shoulder harnesses. His crew seat spat him out into the center of the ship and he used his magic to float in the center. Vertigo threatened to overtake him as the ship spun around him.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“What are you doing?!” Morwen shouted.
“I can either tell you, or do it. You pick!”
“Go!” she assented after a quick pause.
He feathered his thrusters and turned to head towards the access hatch to get outside. This definitely rated among his more poorly thought out plans. As he went, Amara caught up to him.
“Whatever you’re planning, you’ll need help.”
Too late to argue with her now, as he rolled the access wheel on the hatch and popped the seal on the airlock. His helmet snaked up over his head and hissed as it sealed him in. He could have flown out, but he clung to the ladder. He used his armor’s night vision systems and squinted in the green darkness. Few light sources shed enough ambient light and what bit there was made the blood drain from his face.
The air wyrm was having its way with the Raven’s hull. Flecks of metal glittered in small fires that whipped out of the hull of the ship. Raw primal electricity crackled out of the dragon’s mouth and nearly cleaved the ship into two. His blade was in his hands and he braced a foot against the hull to rise and confront the dragon. Something tingled within him, like soft ripples on the surface of a calm pond, when something black and fast crashed into the dragon, striking it repeatedly. It gnashed teeth and slashed wildly with claws, but struck nothing.
“Was that a voidspawn?”
Akamori nodded slowly. “I think so?”
The dragon and its dance party faded into the black as the ship tumbled away. Amara patted his shoulder armor, and he turned. Of course, they were going to crash on the only planet in the void. He re-sheathed his blade, which pulsed in quiet dejection at being stolen a chance at the great white wyrm. The ship bucked as it struck the atmosphere fully now. Akamori and Amara launched free of the deck and it took all the modest skills he gained evading Cenin’s attacks to not eat a piece of debris smack in the face.
Amara flew competently in his wake, mirroring each move as though he’d executed it himself. The aft half of the Raven tore itself free of the front. Akamori grabbed Amara’s wrist and angled his flight path straight up. The two of them narrowly clearing the tumbling half of the ship as the front half glowed a dull angry red.
“They’re gonna crash down there.” Akamori said, and quickly tried to survey the area. In the distance, a black crystal palace that drank in all light sat ominously on the face of a large cliff side. It was the only structure he could find. “That must be our aim.” He placed a waypoint marker on it.
System Info: New Quest: [Void Diver]
Ambushed by the Air Wyrm again, your ship is crashing. But a downed vessel is the least of your worries. Hint: Locals. It’s the locals. Second Hint: If you have issues with Bats, you’d best pray to whatever god you place your faith in.
* Objective : Survive The Void World
* Reward : Unknown.
Accept Quest? Yes/No
He auto accepted it. What choice did he have? Declining it would either lead to death or being stranded. And based on the mission prompt, he wasn’t sure this place was all that friendly to outsiders. Also, he really needed to speak to somebody about the system prompts. It was always so snarky. Was that by design? or flaw?
The pair of mages flew in relative silence as they followed the crashing front half of the ship. While Akamori was confident the captain could help them survive the initial crash, it was what followed that had him worried. The skyline lit up bright gold and orange for a moment as the freighter collided with pitch black soil and carved a deep furrow into the landscape until the wreckage came to a stop.
His helmet’s visor washed out in a light haze of green smoke and soot kicked up from the crash. Bright spots bloomed all around as molten magma boiled up from the soil, taking the shape of bats and spiders. His weapons bristled with eagerness, like attack dogs zeroing in on prey. His armor pulsed in resignation.
“Looks like the locals heard us knock,” Akamori said dryly.
“Of course, it had to be spiders.” Amara said, fighting off a shiver.
He drew his blade and pulsed his armored thrusters, angling him forward towards the cockpit. Since time was essential, he landed in a crouch, not bothering to soften his descent. He held his blade ready in his weapon hand.
“Alright… sword.” he started awkwardly. “Let’s cut our friends out.”
It thrummed with eagerness and he channeled some void and air magic, merging to the two into an experimental spell his blade took to like an expert. Whipping the blade into several tight slashes, pulses of air and void mixed to make whip like blade extension that snapped out into the hull from the blade. Where the blade tendril cracked, the metallic hull dissolved into particles. He spent a few more AP and a few non void shrouded air tendrils whipped out from his free hand snaking into the hole he’d just carved into the hull.
Morwen, Arjun, and Sirsir’s forms drifted up in various states of unconscious recovery. Akamori turned to Amara, who pointed towards a cave set into the black stone a few hundred meters away. “You take point. I’ll carry them.” As she spoke, she was already weaving the air signs. An instant later, air magic swam from her breast towards her hands and pooled together, forming her own air tendrils which reached out and took the other three.
Free of his burden, Akamori drifted ahead of her, blade at the ready as they pushed forward for cover. By now, the Magma bats and spiders were free of the ground and swarming over the shipwreck. Curiously, Akamori noted they were converging on the core of the ship. Were they hunting it because of its magical signature? Questions for later when he had someone who could actually answer them.
They’d almost reached the cave when a few lesser magma spiders and bats intercepted their progress. Akamori cursed under his breath and gestured for Amara to hold up. She seemed all too happy to hang back and let him advance into the monsters. “Well, this sucks.” He groused.
“What is it Sirsir would say? Something about shit meeting a fan?” Amara said wryly. “I think I’d rather meet the shit.” She shuddered in disgust at the spiders.
“Yeah, that tracks.”
The monsters surged forward, fangs, and teeth gnashing eagerly to devour them.